It is almost a decade since Nathan Kimsey came through all three stages of Qualifying School to first earn a DP World Tour card but it often feels like he has been around longer than that.
After a stunning amateur career that saw him play in the Walker Cup, the Englishman would drop down to the EuroPro Tour before his six-round heroics in Spain.
In the decade that has followed he has come through the Qualifying School again, topped the Road to Mallorca, sat out two almost fiull seasons due to injury and lost out in a play-off at the Barbasol Championship thhat would have earned him a maiden DP World Tour victory and a PGA Tour card.
Now, free of injury, he has enjoyed one of his best years on Tour to sit 72nd on the Race to Dubai Rankings Delivered by DP World at the conclusion of the regular season and play in the U.S. Open.
As part of a series focusing on the 2025 Q School graduates who have made it all the way to the 2026 Play-Offs, the DP World Tour caught up with him ahead of the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship.
How satisfying is it to be back in these limited field end-of-year events after a couple of years away?
It's really great. I made it to the final event a few years ago and obviously I was wanting to make it back. After losing my card last year and having to go through Q school, having a really good season and making it back to the end-of-season events is great.
As a Q school graduate, was this on your radar at the start of the year or do you think you've exceeded your own expectations?
I think it's a bit of both in a way. Naturally coming out of Q school, your focus is to regain your full playing rights and finish in the top 100. So I think that was the main goal. But then as the season went on and I'd had a good first few months, then the focus kind of shifted to trying to make the Play-Offs and get into these events. So I think it was kind of a little bit of a bonus in a way to exceed the goal of just keeping my card. But then I also think it's definitely a goal that I think is very reasonable for me in terms of shooting for that every year.
You were in stellar form from February to May time. Did anything specific click there? Were you doing anything differently?
No, I think it just found its way. Last year was my first full year back after having a year out and I think it sort of just took me a little bit of time to kind of get settled. I never really got quite got settled with my game but I think I was doing a lot of good things and played played nicely at Q school to get my card back and that gave me a little bit of confidence going into the new season. I think just having a bit of time over the winter to kind of reset myself a little bit and then come out of the gate a bit quicker in the Middle East and Africa and play some good golf. I think that was great and then that sort of springboarded me into the spring and I carried on playing some good stuff. So it was just kind of carrying on, knuckling down and doing things that I knew I was on the right path and that thankfully turned into some good results early on.
Part of that was topping U.S. Open qualifying to play your first Major over in the States. What was that experience like?
It was great. Obviously I'd qualified for The Open the year before. Those qualifying days, if you turn up and play some good golf on the day, you're going to give yourself a good chance of making it through. And to go and play on those biggest stages in the game, it's always a great experience and you always learn a lot from it. It gives you a lot of confidence that you can potentially compete at that level. It was obviously a great experience and something that I'm looking at hopefully doing a lot more of in the coming years.
That play-off at the Barbasol in 2023, to come so close to getting a PGA Tour card and then not doing it. How disappointing was that and has it almost fuelled your fire a little bit to keep going?
It was kind of a weird one in a way that week at the Barbasol because I'd been out injured for about five months not long before that, it was only my third event back from injury. That result meant that I'd fully wrapped up my card for that season and I could kind of go into the second-half of the year not worrying about retaining my status or anything. So at the time it was a really positive week even though I lost in the play-off. So I look back at that quite fondly really rather than negatively in terms of missing out. Obviously you see that you could have could have had this status or that status and got into certain events which would have been amazing but at the time, it was a great week and it just shows that, although it was an opposite field event, it shows that I can go and compete on these stages and in some events around the world. I'm just trying to keep working away and give myself those opportunities and put myself in those positions again.
You've had some injury issues, losing almost all of 2019 and five months of 2023 to a hand problem and then almost all of 2024 with your wrist. Is there ever a time when you think: why me? Because every time you get some momentum it seems to strike. Is it sometimes hard to pick yourself back up when your body occasionally lets you down?
It was tough. I got off the HotelPlannner Tour and then at the start of the 2023 season was playing some really good golf and then kind of getting scuppered for a few months there was tough. But I came back out and played well so that ended up being a really positive year, still. Then we had to come out at the start of 2024 and only a couple of events in, to get a reoccurrence of the injury again and then end up being out the whole year, that was obviously tough. Then trying to come back from a whole year out and play again last year on limited starts, that was tough, to try and get the momentum back and try and get my game in good shape, play consistently enough to keep my card. So it's tough at times when your body lets you down but hopefully that stuff specifically is behind me and I've done a lot of work over the last couple of years to try and get in better shape physically and do some stuff in my swing to try and ease a few things and ease a little bit of load on certain areas of my body. Fingers crossed, I've been pretty healthy now for a couple of years. So I'm just trying to get that momentum back and play some good stuff. And I think for the most part, I've done that this year. Hopefully I can keep pushing on.
You had a stellar amateur career and it's probably fair to say the start of your professional career had its ups and downs until you won the Q School in 2016. How much do you think you learned from being top of the tree as an amateur to maybe not having things all your own way? And how do you think that's helped you in your career now?
I think what you learn fairly quickly is that it's almost like two different games really, coming from amateur stuff to then playing professional golf. I think it's a lot different of a situation to then start travelling and competing and suddenly financially it's a lot different and obviously the standard's really high. So it's a bit of a learning curve but I think that of everything that's happened in my career, I think you use it as a learning experience, use it as motivation, whatever it needs to be. And I look back on it and I kind of think, well, I've probably gone through a lot of different scenarios where: I've gone to Q school, I've gone through HotelPlanner Tour at various levels over the years and I think that all kind of adds up to a lot of good learning experiences. Going through different things at different times you might kind of learn something from a Q school experience last year compared to what you did eight or nine years ago. So when you're a different person, different age, kind of different circumstances, I think having that sort of mixed bag in a way is quite a positive thing because it gives you a lot of experiences to draw on.
To come through Q School twice, you can clearly perform under pressure. So where do you think you could have been if you stayed healthy and where do you think you can go with all the experience that you have now?
My vision for going forward is just to keep working hard and keep seeing where everything will take me. The last couple of years with the health stuff, it's been trying to get myself in a position where I'm healthy and I'm able to compete more consistently. Fingers crossed I've managed to do that. And I think I've shown over the years that I can definitely compete on different stages and different scenarios. So hopefully I can just keep pushing on and keep improving and give myself chances to win. Hopefully, take one of those opportunities at some point and then just keep kicking on and just keep working hard, keep looking forward and just keep doing what I can do to get better every day.
Looking to this week, how are the confidence levels? How are you feeling? And do you think you can go out there and maybe challenge?
Yeah, definitely. I'm really looking forward to it. Obviously it's a great thing to make those end-of-season events and especially off the back of Q school and not knowing what your schedule is going to be like for the year, to get your way into those events is great. I've played at Yas like a few times over the years and it's a place I really enjoy going back to. The game's been feeling OK the last few weeks so really excited to get out there and see what happens.
